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Category talk:Former Countries (OTL)
This should have the Greek city-states list as a subcat.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 07:26, November 10, 2015 (UTC) :Do those match our definition of country? Seems debatable. Turtle Fan (talk) 14:57, November 10, 2015 (UTC) :I see Jonathan has added a bunch of Italian City-States and ancient kingdoms such as Philippines and Moab as well as things like the Iroquois, no doubt because the article talks about "Iroquois Confederacy". None of these are what are historically considered "countries". Once again he is perverting specific categories into something so broad as to render it meaningless. What is this compulsion to force-fit as much as you can, Jonathan? ML4E (talk) 17:22, November 10, 2015 (UTC) :This needs a serious overhaul. Jonathan, please respect our moratorium on new additions till after we've cleaned it out. Remember, not every sovereign political entity can be considered a country. I submit that all city-states and all empires should both be removed, for instance. Turtle Fan (talk) 23:21, November 10, 2015 (UTC) It occurs to me that there is a common phenomena in classification science where, for a lack of better terms, you have "minimalists" and "maximumists". The former classify tightly, excluding marginal cases while the latter do the opposite. Up until now, we have been acting as minimalists while Jonathan is a maximalist. :Yes, that does seem to be the case. Of course, there was a time when we employed a more maximalist approach, but we've been favoring fine distinctions for some years now. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:00, November 11, 2015 (UTC) In addition, we tended to classify based on significance to the works of Turtledove. See for instance Category talk:Roman Cities. There are plenty of other European Cities that were in the Roman Empire but they never appeared as such in the works of HT. Likewise, even if we include City-States in "Former Countries" (which I don't agree with) we shouldn't classify Italian cities or Hamburg that way unless they appeared as such it a Turtledove story. :That too. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:00, November 11, 2015 (UTC) This also applies to historical character categories such as Richard Nixon as an Actor or Werner Heisenberg as a Musician. They are not known as such in history and these talents (even if applicable) are not significant in a Turtledove work. ML4E (talk) 18:41, November 11, 2015 (UTC) :I'm less sure about this one, actually. A city has a very long history, often mumtiple millennia (at least in Europe and the Middle East; with a few exceptions like Beijing, the great Asian metropolises are surprisingly young). Comprehensively covering everything that a city has been ever been would be wholly impractical. An individual, however, is much more manageable. More importantly, HT's work is most popular among history buffs, who would enjoy as full and vibrant a biographical picture as possible. Turtle Fan (talk) 20:00, November 11, 2015 (UTC) ::My concern is more about cluttering a category with irrelevant articles. I feel they should include only those articles that have a relevance to HT works. Now, there is leeway for Historicals. Certainly basic biographical info like DOB, DOD and nationality should be included and things that they were well known for in life even if not occurring in any Turtledove stories. Nixon was President of the US but is not known as an actor. Ronald Reagan, until we got the MWtIH reference, only appeared as a sportscaster in SV but was well known as both actor and president so both should be included while not for Nixon. This is aside from the other argument that acting was never a professional endeavor for Nixon and should be excluded on those grounds. ML4E (talk) 19:20, November 13, 2015 (UTC) :Ok, I've been sick all week. ::Sorry to hear it. Last night I was puking so hard I could barely breathe, but it passed quickly. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:19, November 13, 2015 (UTC) ::Ditto. I've been fine but busy. ML4E (talk) 22:51, November 13, 2015 (UTC) :I hate to say it, but I think this needs to be a case by case thing. I don't think wholesale banishing empires or city-states is the best idea, as I can think of any number of instances where a city-state or an empire looked and acted more like a country than some countries do. A remedial step might be putting them in their own "former empires/city-state" categories, since HT has used Athens (for example) both in its ancient city-state phase and in its modern status as the capital city of the country of Greece, and acknowledging those elements in their history strikes me as worthwhile. :But, yeah, we do need to make sure what we have listed qualify. I noticed Krakow has shown up. I'm not an expert, but my understanding is that Krakow has always been a central Polish city. I cannot find anything that suggests it was some sort of sovereign entity of any sort in its history. :::"the Grand Duchy of Cracow from 1846 to 1918" from the OTL section of the article. Makes it a country for Jonathan. ML4E (talk) 22:51, November 13, 2015 (UTC) ::::The Grand Duchy is a stretch; the Habsburgs did that to administer Krakow. On the other hand, Grand Duchies were nominally states. TR (talk) 23:03, November 13, 2015 (UTC) :::::Calling the Hapsburg empire of that period a country is also a stretch; it was almost as close to a commonwealth as it was a state, and likely would have completed that journey had it survived that fateful day in Sarajevo. But if we're excluding marginal cases, an administrative subdivision within the Double Monarchy should be out. Turtle Fan (talk) 02:38, November 14, 2015 (UTC) ::I dimly recall Krakow issuing a DoI and making good on it for about two or three years, sometime between the Congress of Vienna and the 1848 revolutions. I don't remember any details. ::More generally, I do agree that an ad hoc basis may be in order for city-states. Few people indeed would deny Singapore's nationhood today, so nationalism and the city-state can go together. And you're also right that there are a few empires out there that have behaved nationalistically, as well. Tsarist Russia immediately springs to mind. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:19, November 13, 2015 (UTC) :::"Former City-States" and "Former Empires" occurred to me too, but to what end? The City-States makes some sense if they appeared in a Turtledove work as such but I think all the OTL empires can be considered defunct today so it would be essentially double-cating everything. ::::Hmm, yes, I think you're right about the empires. Perhaps we could place that category inside this one? Turtle Fan (talk) 02:38, November 14, 2015 (UTC) :As for the questions regarding historical figures, I'd still vote in favor of using the "professional" standard in categorizing, i.e., did they earn a living doing this particular task? Otherwise, they're hobbiests. I'd be willing to relax that a bit depending how important that hobby were to their lives. Using Nixon as actor as an example: Nixon starring in a community theater play so he could woo Pat should not put him into the actors category as its currently defined. Now, if Nixon had kept up his acting, starred in a couple of plays a year in between his politicking, and played Willy Lowman even as Watergate brought him down, that might be different. TR (talk) 21:28, November 13, 2015 (UTC) ::I agree that listing Nixon as an actor is ridiculous. However, there are other cases that are less clear cut. Consider Henry VIII of England: HT's small handful of name-drops don't refer to his musical compositions, and to the best of my knowledge, at no point could he have been considered a professional, even by the relatively loose standards of 16th century arts. Yet his contributions to the field were significant, enough so that I would argue they are of general interest. Turtle Fan (talk) 22:19, November 13, 2015 (UTC) :::Your example of Henry is what I was trying to get at with Nixon, the hobbiest who managed to do something important with the hobby. I think that those should be taken into account. TR (talk) 22:34, November 13, 2015 (UTC) ::Well some wiggle-room might be in order but Heisenberg goes too far. I also recall some old discussion on including amateurs if it is story significant. For instance, if HT does a Richard and Pat Nixon love story on their first meeting during their playhouse days. More seriously, we don't have the "Minor Characters" entry for it but I recall Potter bitching to Forest about a Confederate who thought he did a good Yankee accent from his "amateur theatrics". if we had that character, then "Actor" might be justified for him. ML4E (talk) 22:51, November 13, 2015 (UTC) ::Oh and Jonathan, if you have anything to suggest, by all means feel free to comment. ML4E (talk) 22:52, November 13, 2015 (UTC) This seems eminently reasonable.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 23:03, November 13, 2015 (UTC) So we are agreed that the Empire cat will be cat'ed here too and that a "Former City-States" cat be created but only for those that appeared as such in the works of Turtledove? ML4E (talk) 19:53, November 15, 2015 (UTC) Continent subdivision Jonathan's recent attempt to redefine the European countries category has led me to review this category. We could (and possibly should) subdivide based on continent. I'm certain we can justify North America, Europe, and Asia. TR (talk) 17:16, December 31, 2015 (UTC) :That thought occurred to me while I was undoing the changes he made. I agree, we would have enough for at least the three sub-cats you mentioned. ML4E (talk) 17:22, December 31, 2015 (UTC) ::I'm not sure I see a need. Countries by continents are geographical divisions, defunct countries is a political distinction. They don't seem related. I suppose doing it as a cross-reference would be bearable, though. Turtle Fan (talk) 19:50, January 2, 2016 (UTC) :::They could be double cat'ed, both here and in the continent they were in. That would cover off what Jonathan was trying to do while not mixing former and current countries. ML4E (talk) 18:41, January 3, 2016 (UTC) :Mmm, it looks like Jonathan wasn't the only one that made that mistake. We might want to clarify the language in each of the categories. ML4E (talk) 17:39, December 31, 2015 (UTC) Free France and Vichy France Should these be here? They are just different past governments of France.JonathanMarkoff (talk) 19:07, December 20, 2018 (UTC) :See Talk: Vichy France where you raised this before. ML4E (talk) 22:16, December 20, 2018 (UTC) ::Sorry about that. I didn't see the talk page until it was too late. Oh well, I'll go fix the problem now. --JCC the Alternate Historian (talk) 19:50, December 21, 2018 (UTC) Native nations I don't think Cherokee, Iroquois, etc., belong here. They are "nations" of a different wavelength than USA and Canada, and a Cherokee Nation still exists so it is not really "former". The Iroquois Five/Six Nations was not quite the same as the 18th-century European concept of a nation. It was a bit more like the Cherusci and other Germanic tribes.Matthew Babe Stevenson (talk) 17:46, November 21, 2019 (UTC) :I think I agree. Perhaps we should read "state" rather than "nation." Turtle Fan (talk) 19:59, November 21, 2019 (UTC)